ON SITE

A S I G H T F O R S Q U A R E E Y E S Dana Fry’s new South course at Michigan’s Arcadia Bluffs resort is a radical homage to CB Macdonald and Seth Raynor’s Club

tar developer Mike Keiser’s most done a pretty good job. In a typical year, So no-one can be particularly surprised famous insight into what makes the lakefront course designed by Warren that owner Rich Postma should choose to golf resorts successful is his pithy Henderson and Phil Smith plays host to build a second course. But getting the right comment: “One course is a curios- over 25,000 rounds of golf, a remarkable second course isn’t entirely straightforward. Sity, but two makes a destination.” And it is number for a venue so far north and with a You want to do something different from pretty obvious that, if you want golfers to correspondingly short season. It’s true that your first offering, but to change too travel a considerable distance to your prop- northern Michigan is something of a Mecca radically risks making your guests wonder erty and stay for several days, to have more for golf, with Alistair MacKenzie’s legendary why the two are connected. And when the than eighteen holes to offer is a huge help. Crystal Downs less than half an hour away, property for the second course is pretty However good a course might be, variety is and Mike De Vries’ acclaimed Kingsley Club dramatically different from the first, that the spice of life. One would not necessarily not that much further. Both these courses problem is intensified. get bored playing Pacific Dunes over and are private, but there’s no doubt that quite a At Arcadia Bluffs, to replicate the first over again for a week, but the appeal of hav- lot of Arcadia Bluffs guests pay them – and course in any sense was not an option. ing Bandon Dunes, Bandon Trails and Old others – a visit when they’re in the area. Henderson and Smith’s design is to any Macdonald to choose from can’t be denied. Nevertheless, the Bluffs is unarguably one of normal course what a blockbuster action At the Arcadia Bluffs resort on the eastern the most successful golf resorts in America, movie is to Brief Encounter. It fronts onto shore of Lake Michigan, they’ve spent much evidenced by the construction, in the last Lake Michigan at the top of the bluffs of the last two decades trying to prove eighteen months, of a second lodge, with 16 for which the place is named, and the that Keiser’s line is not true. And they have extra guest rooms. earthmoving has created enormous faux

50 Architecture Arcadia Bluffs Photos: Arcadia Bluffs Golf Bluffs Arcadia Club Photos:

Upon first seeing the site, Dana Fry told owner Rich Postma they could build a course similar in look and feel to Chicago GC. Even before meeting Fry, Postma had thought the same

dunes and deep, steep sided valleys through on the internet, to a reaction of ‘What the although rarely seen by outsiders (the club’s which the holes run. It is hugely popular, #$@&! is that?’ from incredulous viewers. membership is tiny and a guest invite is exciting and entertaining, but if what Bill The first word that springs to the mind among the most highly sought-after tickets Coore and Tom Doak do is minimalism, then this is maximalism writ large. No orthodox course could possibly out bluff “Lots of us are used to squared off tee boxes. the Bluffs, especially as the site chosen for the second is a mile or so inland from the But square greens? Rectangular bunkers? existing property. Yet, in its own way, the new South course Fairways cut straighter than a highway at Arcadia Bluffs, designed by architect Dana Fry, is just as radical as its predecessor. The through the desert? Not so common.” property is just about all sand – as is the case for so much of northern Michigan – and what Fry and his team have done with it of anyone who sees pictures of Arcadia in golf), is universally regarded as among looks like nothing most of its guests will ever South is ‘square’. For what Fry has built is the world’s finest. And Chicago GC is surely have seen before. a love letter to Chicago , one of the most famous example in existence of a Last summer, a few photos started to the oldest clubs in America, possessor of geometric course, which is to say one where leak out on social media and elsewhere a CB Macdonald/Seth Raynor course that, most of the lines are straight. Lots of us

51 Arcadia Bluffs

are used to squared off tee boxes; for good or ill they are widely seen as a mark of a traditional, high quality course. But square greens? Rectangular bunkers? Fairways cut straighter than a highway through the Photo: Arcadia Bluffs Golf Bluffs Arcadia Club Photo: desert? Not so common. Dana Fry told GCA: “On my first visit to meet Rich Postma and Warren Henderson, they drove me up to the far north side of the property which is the highest point of the site. The property was around 50 per cent covered in old apple orchard trees and secondary growth trees. From this vantage point you could see across the entire property. I told Rich that if we cleared the site it would look very much like the land at Chicago GC and that we could build a course to look very similar in look and feel. “Rich loved that idea and said let’s do it. What I didn’t find out until much later is that he had a similar thought before he met me. We quickly decided not to copy holes, but we did try to recreate the look and feel of the golf course. The property is 315 acres with no development. Two trees remain on the interior of the site. The flat-bottomed traps with steep faces, the straight lines in the fairways and greens and the areas of native grasses between holes all give the similar feel to Chicago GC, as do the massive putting surfaces that average just over 9,000 sq ft in size.” Nonetheless, although the squareness is clearly the defining visual feature of On the new South course at Arcadia Bluffs, flat-bottommed bunkers Arcadia South, it is not the most important with steep faces have a similar feel to Chicago Golf Club characteristic from a playing point of view. Yes, there are places on the greens where programme for the South course; I think are much larger and not so severe. But still, if a ball runs into a corner – or a flagstick many golfers will be grateful for someone this is a course where you tangle with a is placed in one – there will be some fun who can instantly give them yardages to pin cut close to the edge of a green at your and games. But in all honesty, if it were reach and carry bunkers. To hit a seemingly own risk. possible to close one’s eyes to the landscape nice tee shot and see it run five yards too The consequence of this is that I think while playing golf, you’d hardly notice the far into a bunker will be common on this the course will be really quite difficult – squareness. course, unless golfers plan their routes or at least, can very easily be made quite For my money, the two characteristics of carefully. Fry’s design is classic strategic difficult. It isn’t epically long; the site the course that define how it will play are the golf; no tricks, nothing especially funky, has about sixty feet of elevation change, bunkers and the greens. As to the former; except the look of it, but just strong, but no steep inclines, so it will be an Fry’s fairways are wide, and it is true that on interesting golf architecture. extremely comfortable walk. And, as I said the courses by Macdonald and Raynor that he is seeking to emulate, bunkers biting deep into the fairways are commonplace. But in “In all honesty, if it were possible to close one’s our modern world of golf, we are more used to hazards that flank play, even to the extent eyes to the landscape while playing golf, you’d of ‘fairway’ bunkers that have no actual connection with the fairway, and should hardly notice the squareness.” really be called rough bunkers. This is emphatically not the case at Arcadia South. I’m prepared to bet that I said that the other defining factor was earlier, the fairways are very wide indeed. a high proportion of resort guests will the greens; perhaps I should have said the But those greens, and the hazards that never have played a course with so many course as a whole. A large proportion of protect them, mean that making a score bunkers in the direct line of play. It’s truly a the golf course is convex; fairways shed at will require precision in approaching and throwback to the early days of golf design, the sides into low areas that, in time, will quality recovery shots when the approach where cross bunkers were used on virtually be mostly fescue rough. And the greens too goes wrong. Perhaps that is the final big every hole. As such, there is strategy are designed to shed. Only Pinehurst No. 2, difference between Arcadia’s two courses. everywhere; the bunkers form barriers to of courses I have seen, has greens more The first one looks terrifying, but is actually progress that golfers must plot their way crowned than Arcadia South, although more playable than it seems at first glance; either over or around. Fry’s surfaces are in no sense as punishing while the second seems more low-key, but There are plans for a substantial caddie as those at the North Carolina venue; they packs quite a punch in its squareness. GCA

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